Author Topic: Hotplate heat Control  (Read 13706 times)

sparks32

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Hotplate heat Control
« on: March 23, 2014, 09:15:22 AM »
Hi, I have a large sealed cooking pot and I need to keep it at between 75 - 85 degrees Celsius for 90 mins at a time.
I have an electric hot plate hooked directly into a 240V 50 HZ AC supply Via a Solid State relay controlled by input 1 of a  Fx2424 and a sealed lm34 hooked into ADC 1 reading the temperature.
So I was thinking of trying to work out the PID function. But because it is a 50 HZ ac supply i don’t think using PWM would work well. I was thinking of a low switch rate duty cycle control to regulate the temperature similar to what the simmer stat would do. Should i be use the pid function or try to use 2 timers and try to use a custom function to alter the set values? Thanks for the advice in advance.  

sparks32

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Re:Hotplate heat Control
« Reply #1 on: March 23, 2014, 09:17:58 AM »
OOPS I meant the SSR was controlled by output 1 not input 1 thanks

garysdickinson

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Re:Hotplate heat Control
« Reply #2 on: March 23, 2014, 02:47:31 PM »
I think that you are correct in your assessment of the PWM capabilities of the PLC.  The lowest PWM frequency for the current PLCs is 50Hz.  To get a 1% resolution on PWM you'd need a frequency closer to 0.5Hz.  The PLC's PWM hardware/firmware doesn't go slow enough!

You need a slow PWM system for your SSR. I have sample code from an older project that does slow motion PWM.  I used COUNTERS to get a PWM output with 1% resolution.  At 1% the output will be one for 20mS. out of every 2S At 99% the output will be on for 1.98S out of every 2S.

I think that PID is an excellent approach for computing the next value for your hot plate.

The following is what I have done to get slow PWM

There are 2 custom functions:

    [*]SetPWM - Function to adjust PWM duty cycle

    'SetPWM - Custom function to determine PWM duty cycle
    '
    Call ComputePWM      ' Compute next PWM value in A. A must be in the range of
                   ' 0..SV of the TotalPeriod COUNTER
                   '
                   ' This function is a dummy, the value in A changed via the
                   ' on-line debug interface for the purpose to test/debug.



    ' The SV (Set Value) of the COUNTER, OnPeriod, determines the overall duty cycle of the PWM output.
    ' The range for the SV is bewteen 1 and the SV of the TotalPeriod COUNTER.
    '
    ' If the SV of the OnPeriod COUNTER is set to 1, this is the minimum duty cycle.
    ' If the SV of the OnPeriod COUNTER is >= the SV of the TotalPeriod Counter, then the PWM output
    '   is always on. 100% duty cycle.
    ' If the SV of the OnPeriod COUNTER is set to 0, then the contact associated with this COUNTER
    '    is undefined, but treated by the ladder logic as being "FALSE".  Setting the SV to the
    '   OnPeriod COUNTER does not get a 0% PWM output, but rather a 100% PWM output. The "fix" to
    '   this problem is to clear the EnablePWM RELAY when a 0% output is desired.
    '   EnablePWM is cleared to disable the PWM output when a 0% duty cycle is required.
    '
    IF (A = 0)
       ClrIO EnablePWM         ' 0% PWM is special, so disable the hardware
    ELSE
       SetCtrSV OnPeriod, A   ' Non-zero PWM, so let the hardware run...
       SetIO EnablePWM
    ENDIF


    [*]ComputePWD - Function to compute next PWM duty cycle value
    This function, is currently a placeholder (dummy).

    ' ComputePWD Function to compute new PWM value, Value is returned in A
    '
    ' This is a dummy function and is to be replaced by working code
    '
    RETURN

    [/list]

    Gary D

    sparks32

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    Re:Hotplate heat Control
    « Reply #3 on: March 24, 2014, 03:52:32 AM »
    Thanks for the advice Gary D I'll have to digest that. Much appreciated. I have a bit of time to read up on those functions and tinker with them a bit I should have it running properly some time next week. i'll let everyone know how it all paned out for anyone else who wants to do something like this.